Investigation undergraduate students' perceptions toward the Internet: case study on Iraqi undergraduate students

Abstract

This article presents a quantitative study on gender and subject of study differences in perceptions towards the usage of Information Technology (IT) related tools and applications meanly Internet. On the basis of Tsai [1] 4-Ts categories the research were conducted at three different universities with the capital city of Baghdad, Iraq. Two hundred twenty eight undergraduate students were involved as participants for this study, 100 students from humanity colleges 62 were female. The other 128 were from Dentistry College, Al-mustansirya University 86 of them were female. The study progressed through finding relations between the variables used. The findings of the analysis revealed that students tended to mainly perceive that the Internet was a Technology, and then Guiding-Tour and Tool have equal places depend on different factors, they placed fewer emphases on the Internet as a toy other findings within the same subject of study (e.g. Humanity students) gender factor was not significant, but with all participants (all colleges) gender factor was highly significant. Also found each group of participants using the Internet to fulfill their needs to complete their lack of knowledge for example Humanity student voted for internet as technology but scientific group voted as Tool.Key wards: IT, Students’ perceptions, Internet, Gender, 4-T categories.